d. During all those thirty
years his well-established honesty kept him in offices of trust where
other people's money had to be taken care of, but where no salary was
paid. He was treasurer of all the benevolent institutions; he took care
of the money and other property of widows and orphans; he never lost a
cent for anybody, and never made one for himself. Every time he changed
his religion the church of his new faith was glad to get him; made him
treasurer at once, and at once he stopped the graft and the leaks in
that church. He exhibited a facility in changing his political
complexion that was a marvel to the whole community. Once the following
curious thing happened, and he wrote me all about it himself.

One morning he was a Republican, and upon invitation he agreed to make a
campaign speech at the Republican mass-meeting that night. He prepared
the speech. After luncheon he became a Democrat and agreed to write a
score of exciting mottoes to be painted upon the transparencies which
the Democrats would carry in their torchlight procession that night. He
wrote these shouting Democratic mottoes during the afternoon, and they
occupied so much of his time that it was night before he had a chance to
change his politics again; so he actually made a rousing Republican
campaign speech in the open air while his Democratic transparencies
passed by in front of him, to the joy of every witness present.

He was a most strange creature--but in spite of his eccentricities he
was beloved, all his life, in whatsoever community he lived. And he was
also held in high esteem, for at bottom he was a sterling man.

About twenty-five years ago--along there somewhere--I suggested to Orion
that he write an autobiography. I asked him to try to tell the straight
truth in it; to refrain from exhibiting himself in creditable attitudes
exclusively, and to honorably set down all the incidents of his life
which he had found interesting to him, including those which were burned
into his memory because he was ashamed of them. I said that this had
never been done, and that if he could do it his autobiography would be a
most valuable piece of literature. I said I was offering him a job which
I could not duplicate in my own case, but I would cherish the hope that
he might succeed with it. I recognise now that I was trying to saddle
upon him an impossibility. I have been dictating this autobiography of
mine daily for three months; I have thought of f